Beer cans are commonplace in today’s world, but there was a time when something like this was unheard of. The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company based out of Newark, New Jersey completely changed the beer industry as a whole on January 23, 1935, when they introduced the first canned beer to the market. It was received with an overwhelming response and just three months later, more than 80% of distributors carried cans of Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer. It made such an impact that even though Krueger’s was a fairly small operation, the main national breweries such as Pabst, Schlitz, and Anhieser-Busch took notice and were forced to jump on the can bandwagon. By the end of 1935, more than 200 million cans had been produced.

Canning in general had become quite popular throughout the late 1800’s. But it wasn’t until 1909 when the American Can Company first attempt to can the fizzy alcoholic beverage which proved to be unsuccsesful. Unfortunately, with the introduction of prohibition in 1920, they were forced to wait until 1933 before they could try again. After countless amounts of research, they finally came up with a pressurized can that had a special coating to prevent the beer from chemically reacting to the tin. Over the years, beer cans grew to the point where now they account for more than half of the $20 billion beer industry, and that’s just in the United States.